Hero Designer 6th Edition - Hero Games Company

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2 ■ Basic Concepts Hero Designer 6th Edition STANDARD CHARACTER TEMPLATES Hero Designer includes the following standard character templates for use in creating both HERO System Fifth Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition characters: ■ Heroic ■ Superheroic ■ Vehicle ■ Base ■ Automaton ■ Computer ■ Automaton ■ AI In addition, Hero Designer includes the following template for HERO System Fifth Edition: ■ Normal To create Normal characters for HERO System Sixth Edition, use the Heroic template. BASIC CONCEPTS This chapter introduces a number of the basic concepts associated with Hero Designer. Many of these concepts appear throughout this manual and discussing them up front will make it easier for you to understand them when they show up later. CHARACTER TEMPLATES A character template is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file that defines a given type of HERO System character. Each template specifies Characteristics, abilities (Skills, Powers, Perks, and so forth), Disadvantages, and Modifiers (Advantages and Limitations) available to build that character type along with their costs. Because the character template also defines exactly what options are available for abilities and Modifiers as well as the relationships between different abilities and Modifiers, you can change how Hero Designer interprets the HERO System rules by changing the template. The “Character Templates” chapter on page 43 contains instructions for modifying and expanding existing character templates and creating new ones. Character templates should not be confused with Templates, the HERO System Sixth Edition name for Package Deals. Because character templates are such a central idea to Hero Designer, the game element called Templates will continue to be called Package Deals by this program. ExPORT FORMATS Hero Designer lets you export the characters you create in a variety of formats for viewing, editing or printing with a web browser, text editor, word processor, or other such program. To do this, it uses Export Formats. Export Formats are files which contain special fields that get replaced by information from your character when you export that character. These files could be HTML (for web browsers), plain text, or more complex formats such as RTF (used by many word processors including Microsoft Word). Because the Export Format determines what information is exported and where it is placed in the exported file, this feature lets you create character sheets with a wide variety of looks. Hero Designer provides a variety of Export Formats for both individual characters and multicharacter combat records, including HTML Export Format based on the standard HERO System Fifth Edition character sheet among others. Finally, Hero Designer lets you modify existing Export Formats or create your own. The “Export Formats” chapter on page 52 has instructions for creating and editing Export Formats. CONFIgURABLE PREFERENCES Hero Designer has many features you can turn on and off from the Preferences dialog. The Preferences dialog. To launch the Preferences dialog, select Preferences from the File menu. For a complete description of the Preferences dialog and the features it controls, see the “Application Preferences” section on page 33. CONFIgURABLE CAMPAIgN RULES You can tailor Hero Designer to your individual campaign by setting a variety of campaign-related configurable limits and options. These options can be saved and loaded as desired, allowing you to create characters for a variety of different campaigns. For a complete description of campaign rules, see the “Campaign Rules” section on page 36. PREFABS When creating HERO System characters, you will often find there are certain pre-built Powers, pieces of equipment, Skill lists, collections of Martial Maneuvers, and so forth that you use over and over again. To make reusing such items easier, Hero Designer features a concept called Prefabs.
Hero Designer 6th Edition Basic Concepts ■ 3 Prefabs are files containing items that you want to use on multiple characters. These files can be loaded and unloaded as needed. When a Prefab is loaded, you can copy any item from that Prefab to the active character. Prefabs are particularly useful for things like equipment lists, Martial Arts styles, and lists of standard Complications (Disadvantages in HERO System Fifth Edition). The “Prefabs And Package Deals” chapter on page 40 has full instructions for creating and using Prefabs. PACKAgE DEALS (TEMPLATES) Package Deals (renamed Templates in HERO System Sixth Edition) are collections of Characteristic modifications, abilities and Complications (Disadvantages in HERO System Fifth Edition) intended to be applied to characters to represent such things as occupations, unique cultures, and fantasy or alien races. While the HERO System Sixth Edition rulebook renamed Package Deals as Templates, Hero Designer will continue to use the name Package Deal to refer to such collections. This is to avoid confusion with Character Templates which are a central concept of Hero Designer. To create Package Deal using Hero Designer, create a character with the desired modifications, abilities, and Disadvantages (or Complications) and save it as a Package Deal. The saved Package Deal can then be applied to any new or existing Hero Designer character. The “Prefabs And Package Deals” chapter on page 40 has full instructions for creating and using Prefabs. HERO DESIgNER MATH Hero Designer properly calculates the costs of all game elements in the HERO System Fifth Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition rulebooks. The following sections offer greater insight into how Hero Designer arrives at some of these values. Rounding Calculations Hero Designer uses the standard rounding rules for the HERO System, though for programming reasons sometimes displays them a bit unusually during the process. Here’s a brief review of what’s going on to help alleviate any confusion about the costs the program shows for your character. As stated in the HERO System Fifth Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition rulebooks, rounding occurs at every step of a calculation with values rounded to the nearest whole number (values ending in .5 are rounded in the character’s favor). Note, however, that these rules only apply to division and multiplication . When you buy an ability that costs less than a full point, you must round it up to a full point – you do not get to round it down to zero because there is no division or multiplication involved. There are a few abilities in the HERO System that have a .5 in their costs. These include a half die of a 3 point Power (like Flash versus a nontargeting Sense Group or Dispel), and in HERO System Fifth Edition, a Penalty Skill Levels versus a specific OCV modifier on a single attack, both of which cost 1.5 points each. Hero Designer displays costs involving such values as integers (rounded up to next whole number, so a ½d6 Dispel is shown as costing 2 points); however, behind the scenes, the program properly keeps track of the fractional values. Thus, if you buy both a ½d6 Dispel and a ½d6 Flash versus the Hearing Sense Group, Hero Designer displays the cost of each as 2, but only adds a total of 3 points (not 4) to the character’s totals. If the subtotal for a tab on a character ends in .5, that subtotal is rounded up when it is displayed; however, the proper value is maintained internally and used when calculating the character’s overall point total. Finally, if the overall point total for a character is not a whole number, the total is rounded up to the next highest whole number (for example, 212.5 is rounded up to 213). Adding any Advantage or Limitation (even a +0 or -0 one) causes a calculation to take place and thus, the results are rounded down when the fractional value is .5 or less and up when the fractional value is greater than .5. By default, Hero Designer calculates to one decimal place before rounding. You can change the number of decimal places used (for example, the HERO System Fifth Edition rulebook and its supplements calculate to two decimal places) on the Preferences dialog as described in the “Application Preferences” section on page 33. Example: Joe buys a 6½d6 Dispel with the Affects Desolidified Advantage (+1/2) and the Inobvious Inaccessible Focus Limitation (-1/4). The Base Cost of the Power is 19.5 points (displayed as 20 points by Hero Designer). Adding the Advantage makes the Active Cost 29 points (19.5 x (1 + .5) = 29.25 rounded down to 29). Applying the Limitation brings the Real Cost of the Power down to 23 points (29 / (1 + .25) = 23.2 rounded down to 23). This same Power without the Advantage but with the Limitation would have a Real Cost of 16 points (19.5 / (1 + .25)=15.6 rounded up to 16). Formulae versus Tables Several tables in the HERO System Fifth Edition and HERO System Sixth Edition rulebooks use simplified math to keep the numbers easy to use and remember. For example, the Vehicle Size Table on page 187 of Volume 2 of the HERO System Sixth Edition rulebook correctly shows the length and width of the vehicle doubling every three levels, but uses simplified values for the intervening levels and SHARINg HERO DESIgNER FILES The Hero Designer section of the Hero Games website (www,herogames.com) has an area called the Vault set aside for Hero Designer users to share characters, character templates, Package Deals, and Prefabs. To access these shared resources in the Vault, select the appropriate action from the Tools menu or type the keyboard equivalent. This launches your default web browser and loads the web page from which you can download Hero Designer files of the selected type. Note, however, that for this feature to work correctly you must be connected to the Internet and logged into the Hero Games website with the login ID used to purchase Hero Designer. In addition, some firewalls may prevent them from working properly. To add your own Hero Designer files to the Vault, go to the appropriate section of the Hero Designer Vault on the Hero Games web site and select the Upload option for that section.
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